Spiritualism in Antebellum America

<p>At a time when the New Age movement is starting to make good on the Spiritualists' vision of America as a 'grand clairvoyant nation' Carroll's work raises provocative questions about the tension betwen freedom and authority in the harmonial religions of today. --Church History<br /><br /> . . . offers the most comprehensive sane examination of its topic yet available no mean achievement for a subject long afflicted by religious partisanship and now perhaps in danger of sympathetic attraction. --Journal of American History<br /><br />. . . fascinating reading it will be for those with a taste for good scholarly writing and a love of the American past and the manifold varieties of the spiritual quest. --The Quest<br /><br />In addition to being an excellent introduction to mid-19th-century Spiritualism Carroll's work also offers scholars a new vantage point from which to view the religious creativity that was so prominent in antebellum America in general. --Choice<br /><br />During the decade before the Civil War a growing number of Americans gathered around tables in dimly lit rooms joined hands and sought enlightening contact with spirits. The result was Spiritualism a distinctly colorful religious ideology centered on spirit communication and spirit activity. <i>Spiritualism in Antebellum America</i> analyzes the attempt by spiritually restless Americans of the 1840s and 1850s to negotiate a satisfying combination of freedom and authority as they sought a sense of harmony with the universe.</p>